Thank you JGPR for sending us this film to review!

Supergirl is a 78-minute documentary about Naomi Kutin who is a record setting power lifter. The catch is that she started breaking national and world records when she was eight years old! Her first national record was set for lifting 148lbs at eight years old. In this documentary, you’ll see her living out her Orthodox Jewish faith and lifting over 230lbs while weighing less than 100lbs. In fact, she has to maintain a strict diet to keep her weight at 97lbs or less. As she grows up physically, she’ll have to change weight classes to adjust to her adolescent body.

It's pretty neat to get a glimpse into the Orthodox Jewish lifestyle. When traveling for events they cannot operate gas or electric powered tools like elevators at hotels on Saturdays. Seeing her become of age and watching her Bat Mitzvah is pretty exciting as well.

Despite all of the excitement, there are some somber moments in this documentary which should be considered before showing this to children. Naomi reads some comments on her YouTube and Facebook videos and many of them are rude and laced with profanity. Her adoring brother has autism and her mother was a victim of sexual abuse as she was growing up. With Naomi’s many successes come failures and she doesn’t win all of her competitions, but she does learn from them though.

One of the biggest trials in this film is the migraines that she experiences for months on end. Per doctor’s orders she has to take a break from lifting. This is a pretty tough blow because she loves lifting and her parents encourage her and don’t force this upon her. Once some progress is made, she resumes lifting and I’ll leave the conclusion of whether or not she makes a comeback for you to watch! Supergirl became available for sale and rental on Amazon Video, iTunes, and Vudu, as well as DVD and Blu-ray on September 28, timed to coincide with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

The GDEX was our second conference and it was much bigger than Gamer Grace. We enjoyed our stay in Ohio and felt at home there. I arrived on Friday and got our booth set up as much as I could given the 30-minute unloading time limit and lack of power. Since I had some time to kill before I could check into the hotel, I decided to try some local cui...

Thank you PBS for sending us this DVD to review!

Growing up I enjoyed reading Garfield comics and watching the cartoons. This fifty-minute DVD comes with the Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes; the picture quality and 4:3 resolution tells me that not much has changed since they first aired. My kids enjoyed watching Happy Holidays, Garfield as they too love his comics.

Here’s a quick synopsis of each episode:

According to Garfield, Thanksgiving is about celebrating food and the more you eat the more grateful you’ll feel. Unfortunately, the vet put Garfield on a diet and Jon assigned Odie to keep him on task. While at Garfield’s check-up, Jon manages to get the vet to come over for a Thanksgiving dinner date. The problem is that Jon can’t cook and has a knack for talking his date to sleep. Fortunately, Jon’s grandmother saves the meal and Jon’s date. I was happy to see them take a moment of silence before the meal.

In the next cartoon Garfield is dreaming about Christmas and imagines Jon dressed as an elf and receives lots and lots of presents because that’s what Christmas is all about. When Garfield wakes up he finds out that instead of eating all the lasagna he wants, he has to go to Jon’s family farm. The family gets to enjoy a nice meal and Jon’s brother says grace before they eat. Jon’s grandmother gives Odie and Garfield some table scraps. After dinner, the family decorates the Christmas tree and enlists Garfield to put the star on top of it. While Jesus isn’t mentioned as the reason for Christmas, in the end Garfield acknowledges that Christmas is about loving more than giving or getting.

As many of you are aware, we’ve been preparing for various gaming conventions and finally attended our first one, Gamer Grace, this past weekend. It was quite an experience and we’ve learned a few things along the way.

The Oculus Rift was a hit and many people enjoyed their first VR experience with it. Watching a six-year-old think he was falling in space was priceless. I kept the headset sanitary by using mask covers and offering disposable shower caps if anyone was interested in head lice prevention. Our family dealt with head lice and it was a total nightmare. Only one person bothered with the shower cap. I’m open to suggestions on what to do with the leftover shower caps.

Setting up the Rift didn’t take much time, so in the future I think a half hour of prep time should be sufficient for placing our tablecloth, Rift, business cards, t-shirts, and Bibles. We offered Bibles to people but didn’t force them. The last thing I wanted to see was them in the garbage can. Although we couldn’t give any away (didn’t realize how hard this would be), we did sell an Action Bible. One thing we will add is a whiteboard to explain that the Bibles are free. I was thinking of writing this on our future whiteboard:

Free Bibles!
Great for:
Reading
Salvation
Changing lives
Bookshelves
Night stands

We had one mother consider buying a t-shirt but her son seemed rather indifferent about it so it never happened. We do have some shirts available online if anyone wants one. Hopefully, more people are interested at future conventions.

Thank you Porter’s Gate Worship Project for sending us this digital album to review!

I grew up Roman Catholic and then attended a Baptist church in my teenage years. Both of those churches had traditional hymns with only an organ or piano and vocals. I appreciate a good hymn, but I also love contemporary worship with a wide variety of instruments or even a symphonic band! Seeing a need for worship revival, The Porter’s Gate started a creative movement to compose some new worship songs with the help of first-rate singers, songwriters, and musicians.

The theme for this collaborative effort is vocation and they hope to use music as an opportunity to extend hospitality and build bridges with our neighbors. I think they achieved this goal of creating music that is beautiful, truth-filled, and inspiring in this thirteen-track album.

There’s a lot of variety in each of the songs with some of them having a male lead singer while others feature a female lead singer. Urban Doxology was part of the collaboration project too. The voices are all great and I didn’t hear any sour notes. Some of the songs feature just a piano while others have an entire symphony. There are some somber songs and others are energetic.

Thank you Urban Armor Gear for sending us this phone case to review! My past two phones have been Samsungs with my previous one being an S4 and my current one an S7. To protect both of them I have used Otterbox covers and have been very happy with their performance. I can’t how count how many times I’ve accidentally dropped my phone, but it happens...

Thank you Archway Publishing for sending us this book to review!

Only by the Grace of God tells the true story of the Brink family who lived in the Philippines and became prisoners of war during World War II. Each of the twelve chapters are told from the three perspectives of the children: Bill, Bob, and Pam. Some of the minor details are different in the accounts, but the main events are told in vivid detail. This family went through a lot of suffering and as the title suggests, they only survived by the grace of God.

The beginning of the 212-page book focuses on their life in the Philippines before the war. The Brink family was well-to-do with fancy furniture and servants who cleaned the house, tended to the children, and chauffeured them around. For birthdays, the kids would get nice gifts like a BB gun or a pony. The recollections of the games the kids used to play were both amusing and scary as a parent. I chuckled about the kids getting caught and punished for sling-shooting rocks at the priest’s metal roof. On the flipside, I gasped aloud when I read about the kids re-enacting cowboys and robbers and hanging one of their friends who volunteered to be the prisoner. Luckily, he was taken down in time before anything serious happened.

Once the war began the carefree lives of this family were over. The Japanese soldiers took away their belongings and father. Later they came back and imprisoned the rest of the family. In the internment camps, the family was often together and usually got a couple of meals a day. Towards the end of the war, food was very scarce and approximately three prisoners a day would die from starvation or other devastating illnesses.

During the war the children still received an education and found unique ways to entertain themselves. One amusing method was taking ants from one ant hill to another and enjoying the battle that would ensue. They even managed to scrounge enough parts to build a cart to scoot around in. While there were a lot of negative experiences, there are still some good ones and the family became closer to God in the process. The timing for their miraculous rescue couldn’t have been better.

Thank you

Vera and Ray’s marriage is on the rocks and their son Sam is trying his best to keep them together. His attempt at cooking breakfast for them resulted in black and crispy pancakes and a huge mess to clean up. Vera is a loving mother while the father seems a bit distant. One thing that the family can all agree on is that their house seems to be haunted. Between doors opening and closing for no reason, objects moving around without explanation, and water turning on sporadically, this family is legitimately creeped out. The oddities seem to escalate at 9:45 every night as well.

Ray knows the name of the inhabitants of the house and their son Sam has seen their daughter who is about his age. The ghosts are not welcome and a medium is consulted to help remove the spirits. Unfortunately, the ghosts need to resolve their conflicts before moving onward. This involves a marital affair with an underage girl, drunkenness, and murder. To help figure all of this out, Ray consults a book that discusses occult topics like Neo-purgatory and Necrostasis. God is mentioned and quickly dismissed as soon as He’s brought up. During some flashbacks, Vera mentions going to church, but later doubts that God existed.

There’s a bit of a story twist, but this film’s main focus is on scaring it’s viewers. The demon like creatures are very creepy with their black bodies and bright eyes. After being startled from the trailer I was on guard for the movie and didn’t get freaked out while watching it. In all honesty I wasn’t very entertained either and have no desire to watch this film again.

Thank you Air Bud Entertainment for sending us a screener link!

After losing to Tiny in the first Pup Star movie, Bark isn’t taking it lying down. In his local singing club, The Bark Easy, there’s a small dog with a big attitude named Scrappy that just so happens to look a lot like Tiny. Bark comes up with the plan to replace Tiny with Scrappy and have her take the fall to Bark in the upcoming season of Pup Star. Scrappy isn’t keen on this plan at first, but once her back alley home gets destroyed she’s onboard with it.

With the help of a skunk, the dog switch happens and those closest to the two dogs immediately detect the personality differences. Lots of hilarity ensues as the little dogs adjust to their new roles. Tiny’s human family considers a vet visit, holy water, and possibly an exorcism to bring back the dog they’re used to.

Many characters return including Lady Paw Paw, Simon Growl, and Dog Marley. Some new characters like Jimmy Kibble and Katty Purry are introduced. Like the previous movie, there is a character that’s extremely flamboyant. Even with the theme of deceit running throughout the movie, the pursuit of integrity and forgiveness is promoted. One final nitpick is that one of the dogs says OMG.

My kids enjoyed this movie and its over-the-top humor that adults will see coming from a mile away. Without spoiling the story, this film is heartwarming and shows the importance of family, friends, and acceptance. If you enjoyed the first movie, chances are that you’ll like this one too. This movie will be in theaters on August 29th. If you enjoy the music the soundtrack is available for purchase on Amazon.

Thank you Tyler Barnett PR for sending us this Frisbee to review!

In 1994 Data East released Windjammers on the Neo Geo arcade system. In 2010, Wii owners were able to add this title to their virtual console library. Now that Data East is no longer around, DotEmu is handling the latest port to PlayStation 4 and Vita systems on August 29th, 2017. For those who are not familiar with the series, it’s a sports arcade style game with intense Frisbee action. Long Pong or air hockey, your goal is to get the Flying Power Disc into your opponent’s goal.

Like the real game of Frisbee, there are various ways to throw it to slip past your opponent’s defenses. If you want to practice your moves outside of the video game, Wham-O has got you covered. The creators of the original Frisbee have released a special edition 175g Flying Power Disc.

The bright blue disc is easy to keep track of in the sky and on the ground. Hopefully, you’ll have a playing partner to catch it so it doesn’t land on the ground though. The Windjammer title is displayed in English and Japanese. Both Data East and DotEmu are represented along with the original and re-release years. Wham-O’s logo and trademark text are present as well.

As the name implies, it flies accurately and has a quality feel to it. Unlike cheap imitations, this one does not feel flimsy. I doubt it would survive a big dog’s teeth very long though. Thankfully, my dog is too old to care and has never been trained to fetch Frisbees. My kids on the other hand are attracted to it.

Thank you Iserlohn for sending us this mini basketball hoop to review!

We haven’t played much basketball at our house since my mom backed into our outdoor movable hoop with my brother’s car. Sure, it’s nice to play with a real basketball outside, but there’s something to be said about the ability to play all year round in the comfort of your own room while wearing whatever you please.

Iserlohn’s mini basketball hoop comes with everything needed to get your game on. With the inclusion of 2 plush cotton basketballs, the games can be conducted in a quiet manner. The mini basketball requires inflation and the bundled-in air pump will do the job if your arms can handle the several hundred pumps required to fill it up. At first, we couldn’t find the inflation needle, but after my son dropped and broke the pump, it was located. Fortunately, we had a spare pump that was able to finish the job.

The rest of the kit is quite sturdy and easy to set up. Installing the basketball net was a breeze. I like how the backboard and door clamps are padded to prevent scuffs and scratches. With the net installed, my son’s bedroom door still closes as it should. The only thing to be careful of is slamming the door open and possibly denting the opposing wall with the rim.

My kids enjoy this new toy and have completed several games of “PIG” with little arguing. Anything that gets my kids to play together quietly is a win in my book. Since we have wood flooring, the mini basketball is a bit loud when it’s in use. The plush balls are quite the opposite so if you want a low volume toy, don’t even bother inflating the mini baskteball. Iserlohn’s mini basketball hoop makes a perfect gift with its reasonable asking price of less than $25 on Amazon.

NIV Inspiring Words Holy Bible
Published by: Zondervan
Price: $24.99

Thank you Zondervan for sending us this Bible to color and review!

Kids and coloring books have gone hand in hand for as long as I can remember. Recently adult coloring books have taken off and not long ago we reviewed Inkspirations: Fruit of the Spirit which has thirty-two Bible verse themed pages to color. The NIV Inspiring Words Holy Bible is attractive to both adults and kids who like to color and provides fifty-two verses to color.

My daughter took an interest in this Bible right away and I promised it to her if she colored in one of the verses. She agreed to these terms and has been taking this Bible to church with her since. The coloring pages are noticeably thicker than the Bible pages and this is a good thing. The Bible pages are thin (like most Bibles) and prone to tearing if too much pressure is applied while coloring.

One of the first coloring pages has the verse Joshua 1:9 which says: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid.” That inspiring verse was the one that my daughter colored. The items to color really don’t match the verses too well in my opinion. This one in particular has a sunrise/sunset and flowers all around. The coloring page for Luke 6:27’s “Love your enemies” is filled with donuts and popsicles. I guess you can show love to your rivals by raising their cholesterol and weight. Despite the odd themes, these pages are pretty well detailed and bound to entertain artists for some time.

Thank you EG-PR for sending us a press screener of this movie to review!

The Passion of Augustine is a Canadian film that was originally released in 2015. Since this film takes place in Quebec, the native language is French. There is English closed captioning which doesn’t kick in until ten minutes or so into the film. The beginning of the movie starts off in Latin and the nuns are waking the girls up in Latin and attending a church service conducted in Latin. Had I not known that Catholic services used to be conducted in Latin, I would have assumed that the subtitles were misconfigured. Thankfully, we stuck with it and enjoyed the rest of the film that we were able to understand.

The rest of the film is fairly easy to follow if you don't mind subtitles. Later in the movie there is a scene where a student is singing a love song in a foreign language and I wish I knew what the lyrics were. Despite the language barrier the story is worth sticking around for. It’s based in the ‘60s and tells the tale of a struggling convent. Between the Vactican II changes and the state’s push for public schooling, the mother superior, Augustine, is doing what she can to keep the all-girls school running. Unlike the public schools, this convent focuses a lot on music theory and has won a silver medal award at a prestigious piano contest.

With the rising cost of heating oil, and the need for better musical instruments, the mother general is not fond of music and thinks that mother Augustine is too proud of her school and its students. One of the recent transfer students is Augustine’s niece, Alice, who gets into trouble and sometimes it’s not even her fault. Other times it is and Alice and another fellow classmate get in big trouble for sneaking out to a “Love in” dance club.

Mother Augustine is protective of Alice because of mistakes that she has made when she was younger. There is a flashback scene that isn’t very clear of a medical procedure being done to Augustine when she was younger. Given some later conversations in the movie, I believe that it was an abortion.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was truly innovative on many levels upon its launch. So many great games were available on that console and given the success of the recent NES Classic, gamers still love them. Besides the fun gameplay, many of the most popular games had stellar soundtracks to go with them. Stemage has done something interest...

For the reasonable price of $12.99 you can get 2 FDA approved and BPA/BPP free mats that measure 16.5” long , 11.6” wide, and 0.03” thick. These are the perfect size for half-sheet baking pans. The corners are trimmed so they’re easy to lift up as well. Because these mats can withstand temperatures up to 500 °F, you can use them instead of wax paper or aluminum foil to protect your baking pans. Alternatively, you can freeze them as long as your freezer doesn’t go below -40 °F. The mats can be cleaned up with soapy water or ran through the dishwasher. They’re pretty flexible (pun intended) when it comes to storage as well. You can store them flat, folded, or rolled up to save space.

The two mats have different designs and I used the one with the inches and centimeters on it for rolling out some pie dough. I’d much rather sprinkle flour on and roll on top of a baking mat than my kitchen counter top. Pizza dough will be another great use for these mats. Having both of them will come in handy for really big pizza crusts! Here’s the recipe I use for making deep dish pizza.

With Mother’s day around the corner this set would make a great gift for mothers out there that enjoy baking. As an added bonus, a bright red silicone spatula is included. I can never have enough spatulas and the red one will be much easier to find in my silverware drawer too. My family and I look forward to many more meals and desserts made with the help of these baking mats. They seem pretty durable and I’m sure we’ll be enjoying them for many years to come. This set is priced lower than competing models and comes with a bonus spatula. How can you beat that?

(Amazon Affiliate Link)

Thank you Whalek for sending us a review sample!

Family camp-outs are fun and our kids aren’t too picky when it comes to just using a sleeping bag to separate themselves from the tent and gravel/dirt terrain underneath them.  My husband and I appreciated the foam padding we brought along, but sadly, foam often breaks apart over time.

The Whalek sleeping/camp pad is pretty durable and has many nice features with my favorite being the self-inflation.  The valve is easy to use, though if there was an instruction manual included, I would have gladly read it.  The construction is solid and looks like it can take a bit of a beating.  The carrying bag on the other hand isn’t as forgiving as I can already see some loosened stitches.  This can be problematic as we all know that putting things back in their original containers is never as easy as removing them!

My 5’7” body fit nicely on this sleeping mat, but my 6’2” husband had his feet dangling off the end a bit.  In conjunction with a sleeping bag using this camp pad is more comfortable than without. However, if I had a choice between a sleeping mat or an inflatable air mattress I would choose the latter without a second thought!  A couch still trumps an air mattress if there isn’t a bed available.  

Thank you Iserlohn for sending us this bronze wind chime!

When my oldest daughter was a toddler we did a nine-hour road trip to Missouri to visit my mom and step dad.  It was a nice trip, but when we were half-way home on the way back, the unimaginable happened.  My daughter puked in the car when we still had another 4.5 hours to go!  We stopped at the closest gas station and used up a lot of paper towels to clean up what we could.   The gas station attendants knew what was going on and took pity on us and gave her some lemon lime pop to soothe her stomach a bit.  While we were at the counter my daughter took notice of the wind chimes and as many toddlers would do, grabbed one and broke it.  Since the gas station refused to let me pay for the broken wind chime, we bought a different one that used to be a lot fuller and purpler than it is today.  

It’s definitely time for a replacement.  Upon opening up the new wind chime, I noticed that some of the chimes were tangled, but thankfully they were easy to separate again.  There are also two extra hangers included with the wind chime.   The build quality is good and it looks pretty sturdy with the exception of the plastic ring on top.  While it won’t rust like the previous one did, I still wonder how much of a beating it will take with the 50MPH+ winds we can get here in Illinois.  

Thank you Iserlohn for sending us these office wheels to review! I used to roller-blade quite often before having kids.  I still put on my Rollerblades every so often, but not as much as I used to.  I’m familiar with doing standard maintenance including rotating the wheels and greasing/replacing the bearings in them. There are many differ...

Thank you HCI Books for sending us this book to review!

Miracles We Have Seen is a collection of short stories from doctors around the world retelling their most memorable experiences throughout their medical careers.  Since there are many authors, divvying up the royalties would be a pain and it’s nice to know that 100% of the profits are going to various charities nominated by the contributing physicians.  Not only are you guaranteed to read some touching stories, you’ll be helping various non-profits as well!

There are many inspiring stories as well as tragic tales told throughout this book. In each of the eighty plus short essays you’ll see the date(s) they occurred and they range from World War II to this decade.  It’s sad to read about the deaths of those who suffered from now curable ailments.  For example, one of the stories is about JFK’s prematurely born son, Patrick, who only lived a couple of days because of his underdeveloped lungs.  Thanks to modern medicine, premature babies have a much higher survival rate. There are several stories involving AIDS, detailing the historic lack of and modern progress towards drugs that keep HIV patients alive longer than a couple of years.

Though this book isn’t meant to be spiritual, there are a few stories that are nothing short of miraculous and the doctors are convinced that something out of this world happened to some the patients they have seen.  There’s a story about a boy who most likely caught a glimpse of heaven by the sheer look of awe on his face before peacefully passing away while holding onto his mother’s hand.  Another event was about a resuscitated toddler who was pulled out of the pool by a child not much older than he was. When asked why she went in the pool to get him despite not being able to swim, she responded by saying that a man in white told her to.    

Since many of the stories are only a couple of pages long, this is a great book to pick up and read throughout the day.  My oldest daughter starting reading this book before me and it didn’t take me long to surpass her.  The stories shared are definitely worth the price of admission at $9.99 digitally and only a couple of dollars more in paperback format.

Thank you Iserlohn for sending us this 50-foot expandable hose to review!

Last summer we had the pleasure of reviewing VicTsing’s garden hose nozzle and my kids helped in the reviewing process by washing our cars with it and getting sprayed down when it was hot outside.  While I didn’t have any issues with the nozzle in that review, my hose was definitely aging and leaking by the faucet, causing a reduction in water pressure.  A new hose was in order and now we got one to test out.  

Since it’s not even spring and barely in the 50’s temperature wise, our testing options are limited.  I hooked up this flexible hose next to our deck and proceeded to spray liquid and solid forms of dog waste off of our deck.  The water leaking issue by the faucet was gone and the water pressure was strong enough to remove some of the stain from our deck that was painted only last year.  For what it’s worth it was chipping last year too and we plan on using a different brand next time.

I like the braided fabric that’s available in multiple colors including black, blue, green, and red.  No matter what color you choose, the handy carrying bag is blue.  I also like that they include twelve extra washers for when the current ones get worn out and cracked.  While not part of the Amazon package, I also received another VicTsing garden hose nozzle which sadly disintegrated upon use.  Fortunately, last year’s model is still working perfectly.

The brass connectors seem sturdy, though the rubber sleeves underneath them slide out of place.  The shut off valve is nice and works as expected.  Before using the hose, it managed to get tangled a bit but untangling it wasn’t that bad.  I like how this hose doesn’t kink-up and stop the water flow like my old one did.